IF: Live Wide


I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.

Diane Ackerman

What we see is often not the whole picture. Take this willow. It rides above the ground, filling space with its graceful willow wands growing toward the ground to establish new plants by taking root. It's roots are wide and deep and when established can transform a swamp to dry ground. Using this beautiful tree as a model, we should try to live wide, live deep and live broad. We should try to touch the sky while grounded on earth, in our families, communities, art and culture.

Almost Friday.


I was talking to my pal, client and Pittsburger, Lynne about Isleys, chipped ham (to some chipped chop ham), a "ham barbeque" (chip chop ham in sweet Kraft's barbeque sauce, or a combo of catsup, sugar and vinegar), and of course, Lemon Blennd. Isleys was also the home and creators of the famed Klondike, which is now available nationally--but lived in all of our refrigerators growing up. We didn't go as far as the George Aiken's discussion (and their terrible, smelly chicken)--but it was hovering around the edges. Turns out, the Pittsburgh Macaroni Company (from the Strip, otherwise referred to by my mother and husband as "The Bent Can") has a website that you can buy Lemon Blennd from which i plan to today. Blennd is great in iced tea...but by itself it has a certain CitraShine lemon quality combined with a cloying sweetness that is unforgetable. Notice, I did not say delicious...but it is memorable and a good add.

K brought home a report card with some good grades and bad grades in classes she should excel at..but "forgot" to turn papers in. Did you hear the airhorn (me) blow the roof off the house? I am confounded. A did well in the track meet. He runs well and looks comfortable doing it...and the group on M School kids are a happy, chatty bunch. So, its fun to watch the sidelines as well as the sports.

House of Health was excellent. The inclines are increasing, the pace picking up...and I am beginning to understand what to do when I get bored. Lots of huffers and puffers today. Ran into some lovely local Tburg ladies, celebrities I am a bit hesitant to name...We had a nice jawbone in the locker room with some interesting tidbits falling about fashion, branding, local real estate and the old time music scene. It was great to see them...lots of active brains ticking with those two.

Saturday is coming up. Pasta and pesto for 50. Hello Wegmans. Bread too. And, some cut fruit? Petit Fours to be picked up on friday. Too much. We will need plates and napkins, piniatas, frisbees and of course the sound system. Perhaps projecting the Ballywood version of Pride and Prejudice. Seems like fun to me.

Am hitting a creative wall for a second. Need to change horses.
More later.

signage from "Just My Dad's" Plaza







I love handmade signs. Love them, their naivete, their directness--the paint and jigsaw saw technology. No illumination...except for the wonderful point of view that they communicate. Track meet yesterday was fun. Another today.
Gotta put the hammer down. Clocking down the work. We are revamping the Luckystone site (way too old and primordial) on the same grid as the illustration site. Should have something new in the next week or so.

Gotta go. More later.


Bright morning. Cats are sitting on the chairs outside like grandpa and grandma...and Shady is watching them. Shady making sure everything is okay...and they are safe. Its a high blue sky. K is having her last track meet today to her delight and pleasure. Not exactly what she expected, but was a good sport and tried her best...which surprisingly she was more competitive about than she thought.

Just ordered petit fours for her bday party this weekend. It is like talking to aliens on the moon. These old fashioned things get hard to find,as well as hard to find people who will make them. But as we have had no luck getting the Hot Truck to come, we will settle for petit fours and pesto pasta for 50. Probably a bit cheaper than ordering the truck at about $10 a head. I did, however, find out that the local Rotary will come and do the Upstate Cornell barbeque chicken thing (you all have heard me rave about) for about $6. a head...but they have a minimum. How bad can that be? My friend is having them do her lakeside wedding...which should be fun as her hubby to be is a Rotarian--so his buds will be there in style.

So, the picture above is the Camp House from the big satellite in the sky. I asked Mr. Reidy for his best shot on the Fingerlakes for satellite pix as an option for the Toivo sketch process. He threw this in for fun. Pretty scary what the big eye in the sky sees. There is a picture there.

Speaking of pictures. We got our homework for Hartford from Bunny Carter and Dennis Nolan. I was up at 3 a.m. running this baby through the brain processor...thinking out what I could do, angles to do it from, the zillion approaches, the zillion other options. Very exciting.

Also, a big possibility of a big big job. Huge job coming across the desk. I am not at liberty to discuss it...but it could keep us on our toes as if we aren't now. Might be a little trip in the future to see what can evolve.

More later.

maybe babblefish can help us? Live from Email.

email message from the aether (or the Kentucky countryside):

"These are ZIP files which we don't subscribe to for EPS or ai files. Standard EPS or ai files will be fine. Reduced for E mail in racial proposition. The PMS vinyl colors are not a problem and will be matched, in translucent vinyl. Do you want the cabinet to be Mill surface or Painted? If PMS match color, for the frame, there will be a additional 100.00. "

What is racial proposition? Is that racial proposition with regard to median income? Is this demographic phrasing? I googled the dickens out of this to no avail? What does this have to do with illustrator files? Is this new language around email that my oldness has kept me from understanding? I am confused.


Back in the seat after time at the House of Health watching the rowers, the flying ducks, the fish jump. Overcast, so the water was a remarkable color of green with jade green highlights. Looking over the list of what to do, who to call, what to email etc. and it seems like today isnt going to be a pull your hair out kind of day. Need to call Mr. Hair, our tree guy...as there is work for a man with a chainsaw (and a rotorooter for the roots of the felled trees).

K presented me a beautiful scratchboard illustration of a baby monkey (not cute...intentionally) that she knocked out (gorgeous job---I know, I am her mom--but really remarkable and quite mature). A presented me a drawing of his new favorite technology, which seems to be his mode. One birthday he drew me a picture of his ipod. For Mother's day, he drew me this very Paul Klee-ish picture of his new turntable (to come). R and A got our old reciever and speakers (bought the year we got married...and bought with the intent that these babies were going to last us our entire marriage> and they have and are morphing into hippdom for our boy). They linked A's cd player and his shuffle to the set up...and they were rocking. R scrounged a bookcase for A--and A was methodically putting his CDs, videos and DVDs nicely away. That was a nice thing for a mother to see! Nice that our Boy is getting some passion in his life...I would have loved it to happen earlier--but I will take what I can get...So this is terrific. K. has tons of passions...so we don't worry about her.

Getting rev'ed about the Toivo graphics. Love the idea of going decorative on this. Different from the Choker look...and different from where the Carol Elizabeth work is going (direction shown above)--So in the margins of time, I will need to get this ramped up. I quote from the Marshall Arisman and Steven Heller book, "Inside the Business of Illustration":

From pp.73 "Trend Spotter"
Black and white.
Long a mainstay of illustration, black and white is on the decline as the ability to print unlimited full color has increased in most outlets. The computer has made it easy to transmit color with a level of quality that surpasses black and whtite reproduction. So, for now, black and white, while usually the sina qua non of illustration is on the decline."

Comic Book
Illustrations done with drawn black line are an emerging style. Flat color is added in the computer. Unlike the comic book, subject matter is not superhero-based...."

Something to chew on. Black and White is out. Color is cheap and easy to get....therefore to my thinking...color is not special...Oh, and if it is black and white, try the comic book approach (I have)--and see what happens. And oh, by the way..what are they talking about--just editorial work? or is there any other place that is using illustration? Sorry, I am getting pissy..

blah blah blah

There is a lot of talk about how an illustration needs to be part of the narrative...is that true? or can it support the story with an image that is a snapshot of a moment, an artist's interpretation of an aspect of the story, a portrait of a character--or is this talk based on the model of illustration driving to fill an editorial need in magazines, magazine covers versus logotypes,product illustration, character design and rendering, murals etc. Is the old model of expectation, the projects, the art director still here but in the way of the typesetter, is a dying breed that will be supplemented with another demand that those illustrators who are watching and learning from their world, will pick up and exploit? When stock photography came on board, the ASMP and photographers I worked with in general,wrung their hands and declared their businesses were over etc. Now, ten year later, the same weeping ones still have businesses--maybe not the same if they were overpaid as the ones ten years earlier, but jobs none the less. They are not as lavishly paid as they used to--which for me as an art director, was a bit shocking that I did the think work, the layout, the drawing out of each photograph, the hiring and contract making with the "talent", fulfilled the POs and paying--and the photographer who was in the large part until the prep for the shoot and the shoot itself was waited on hand and foot. And I was paid a fraction to the photography for the job. My layouts and art direction and imagine, concept--was what pulled the job through. And did I say client wrangling was part of the deal too? Now, there are not gigantic Annual Report budgets (because there are not gigantic budgets anyway, and Annual Reports have finally morphed to 401K wrap-arounds which I have been advocating for well on 12 years). So the priorities are no longer in a printed annual report. Stock art is populating the web. Where is the money going? Who is paying? What are they paying for? Who is their artistic celebrity? How can I go there? or can I? Is there a niche that is not owned yet? Is there a corner in this market for me? Or is it trending towards fine art...and just forget the known editorial audience...and go for broke. Maybe I have something to say. Maybe?

Just got back from back to back Home Despot (intentional) and Lowies...purchase included a Cimmeron Toilet, faucet set, off white brick shaped tile, grout, pipes and tubes,a dehumidifier for the basement, an a wall sconce. It feels like the downstairs under the stairs gabinetto is almost ready to plugged in. Sink from Rennovators Supply is here...waiting silently.

More later.

harumph.


I started reading the Marshall Arisman and Steve Heller book, The Business of Illustration last night--and to be honest, this book makes me itch. And with itchiness comes that building anger and rants that you are all used to. So, get ready! As soon as I can take his whirling red fog and sew words and feeling to it...you will get it full bore. I now know why it's been a year between programs. More to get some space, new calibration, clear out the brain and get it prepped for another go round as a more formed illustrator/graphic designer. I am looking to grow some legs--not trying to be a painter, not trying to be one of the four classmates I studied with at Syracuse. I am a hybrid--and I need to better understand what that means broadly and more importantly, what that means to me. Where does illustration lead? Where doesn't it? How do I have illustration lead strongly...but be able to marry it to text, to headlines, to copy.

More later>>


Vases brimming over with tight lilac blooms--fragrant and room consuming. The white and purple trees at the lake have lots of promise from now until Memorial Day with the cool weather we have had. Now, if we get a little 80 degree burst early on, then there is the oppty that the lilacs will burst sooner. But, to be honest, we are more likely to have it happen in it's own time.

More later>>

Finnish Tex-Mex


Beautiful day today. Cool verging on cold. A. at a CNY track meet in Syracuse. Missed the Cow Plop. Episcopals didnt have anything worth diving on...and I was with the mix at a quarter to 8...circling the stuff. K riding horses with friends at their house. R is moving stones, raking and moving and grooving to prep for the next round of contractor fun. I am working on the black bird image (sketch yesterday). Doing another go round with Carol Elizabeth. Thinking about Toivo (a possible CD package) who describe themselves as:

"Toivo is a six piece band from Trumansburg, N.Y. playing Finnish, Tex-Mex, and original music suited to the traditional dances of the Finger Lakes Region - waltzes, schottisches, polkas, mazurkas, two-steps, hambos and reels."

Hmm.TexMex, Finnish, traditional dances? I am thinking folklorica? And what about the Finnish Folk art? Should do a bit of digging before I start... Here is a cool site on the rise and renewal of Finnish folk music>>. Here is the Finnish Institute>> Finnish Folk art blog, "Looky". Now, here is a fabulous decorative, Finnish illustrator, Sanna Annukka which, matches my thinking around a Jim Flora inspired illustration.>>

I can groove on this.
More later

more later.


more from the land of sketchmania. So, I was sitting here, minding my own business, watching my Acrobat distiller reject all the postscript files that I fired it's way and the phone rang. It was Don Ivan Punchatz from Dallas. I had sent Don a short thank you for the hard work he did in putting together the panel of artists and illustrators to share their work, impressions and life with us during the week in Fort Worth. I also included the first Memento Mori books which he LIKED and was very encouraging to continue with this. He went on to tell me about a series of illustrations he created as a direct outflow from being diagnosed with stomach cancer and the entire, intense treatment program he went through to come out the other end to health. So, my plan is to send him another go round (book two) and he was going to share with me those cancer driven images. He told me about a former student, a fast burning star,who has made a career of these basic, black and white images with skeletons as a central image...that is an inspiration, a Jean Michel Basquiat type of star. Don is very interesting, supportive and truly a nuturing teacher who shares, and shares and shares. His reach is wide and his kindness and arts headset is distinct and uncommon. He is a delight...and I hope we can continue the conversation. I love it that both of us drew our way out of confusion...and fear....

We took a marshy walk on the adjacent property...filled with water, mud, birds and lots of wild privet hedges. A bit of an eye opener relative to what this piece of land looks like, functions like. More later>>

Friday

New bird on the desktop. Really enjoying this one. Turkey still awaits. Good working at the House of Health. Overcast skies, but the water was beautiful and inspiring that I am interested in a water picture or two just of dive into it a bit more. Cornell skullers were going full bore.

Was messing around with Vertical Response, a resource Carol Tinkelman is using for emailers. It seems pretty sweet...as they have nice, workable templates to make good looking (easy to do) formats that can be launched broadly. Now, all I need to do is to gather up a little list and get going. Price is $15. per 1000 names. I think I would be lucky to have more than 500 names. Pushing it to get to 500. Seems easy to do, and once the list is done, really only time is setting up the template and message.

Fun time last night at the Pourhouse. Had a nice chat with Bill Chaisson on what differentiates Old Time music from Bluegrass and Country. Old Time is the root of Country and Bluegrass. Old Time music is performed in a more intimate environment. Bluegrass and Country are the rhinestone, large scale venue versions. Bluegrass is derivative of the musical side of Old Time. Country is more about the words--stories--derived from Old Time. Long John and the Tights were up and rolling--the music was very good and the musicians, animated. It was fun to watch their faces, how they all speak to each other with the music and gesture--and how there are flickers of the children they were that dance across their visages as they go through the songs, music and the physicality of playing. We visited with all sorts of the wonderful local friends--our club on Main Street.

Got some of the Jim Carson reading that I plan to dig into this weekend. Looks pretty good and interesting. It will be good to chip away at these books (maybe even reading the full thing!) before the world starts spinning quicker on it's axis.

We have all sorts of magnificent things to do this weekend:
--cow plop bingo
--Methodist Church chicken barbeque and pie sale
--Episcopal Church rummage sale, chicken barbeque
--and random yard sales and fun
--Track meet with A in Syracuse
--party planning for K for 05/17

Then, we also have to celebrate Motherliness. Whoa. Too much baggage there.

meandering


Mei Mei is knocking on the door--insisting I let her in for a scrumptious breakfast of cat cookies and the requisite snore on the working mans' bed we have under our window here in the kitchen. Shady Grove has been denuded of her pink birthday finery and seems a bit droopy with the lack of flair. I ordered a new collar for her from Sierra Trading Post with reflective tape..so from pinkery to functional fashion I know she will love. We have been very cautious about the night time walk with our black dog since a local woman was killed due to a blind corner, bad visibility and her jogging with her ipod and earphones in each ear. No more of that for us or the kinder. Flashlights for everyone...and I am pondering even the idea of those crosswalk pinnies to make us be even more visible. See Me Fashion. And, I am not talking the little matchgirl grunge...but the bright orange Hunter style fashion.

It is very wet and cool--wonderful grass growing weather. We have done the preliminary broadcast of seed--the first, skimpier shot. Then, the lavish top off...and we then will have a lovely green span that fuses with the old grass. The pine trees are dumping pollen forever--coating the cars, and in the raindrops there are little loci of the pollen looking like bright green fried eggs. These pines also have lovely little raspberry, baby pinecones. The beginning of the new cone season. The trillium are blooming in Smith Woods as is the carpet of young mayapple umbrellas. Smith Woods is a forest on the edge of town which was given to the town with the requirement that nothing be done to the property...no change to the woods, no paths, no planting etc. It is a very interesting and beautiful welcome to Tburg and some say, there are chanterelles that grow there. I think maybe a bit later if this damp weather continues--Shady and I will need to go and see if we can find our own mushrooms. We have these big (6" in diameter) chinese medicinal mushrooms (to admire) on Camp Street. We also grow tons of Shaggy Mane mushrooms here (to admire, though I have been told they are edible).Time to pull out the guidebook to mushrooms to begin to try and imprint them on this feeble brain.

Saturday is another big day here in Tburg. The Episcopal Church has their great rummage sale (8-11) with chicken barbeque and all sorts of all other fun. There are yardsales by the handful. And my favorite, Cow Plop Bingo at the Fair Grounds as a fundraiser for some team or another at the High School. We are hopefully going to his the Episcopal Church (we got a complete set of golf clubs, bag etc. for A last year for $35.--with a ton of other stuff that we passed up...and maybe shouldn't). And then off to the big track Invitational A. has been put in. A won (WON) all 3 of his events last night...despite a rather frightening discovery that he has a reaction to freshly mown grass. Need to call the Dr. about that this morning.

sketch above is one going to CE Jones for her new album.

tidbits


The pinkified birthday went off without a hitch. The knee high, pink wellington boots (from Zappos) are on the feet today. The rhinestone encrusted pink watch adorns her wrist and pink perfume wafts over her. She was delighted with her small party filled with rosy presents--so we all had lots of laughs, jokes and pleasant talk. Sixteen is an amazing age.

Nice meeting with my pal at the Baker. We are moving on the book--making some photo/shot lists, reviewing copy, reviewing the design approach we are doing. All good. Using the raven from my work to plug into a layout for Carol Elizabeth Jones possible CD.More interesting moves with branding issues at the big green company.

Started using the elliptical equipment at the House of Health. I am going to startslow, but it wasn't as bad as I expected--the only trick is (1)staying on, (2) and getting off the right way versus backing off it trying not to fall over the wheel connections. I am queen of two left feet, and being short, gravity always is present in my existance. I gotta learn how to be cool with this because a face plant at the House of Health would be so humiliating and hinder my less than positive self image. Have an early morning phone call--so plan to do the elliptical a bit later in the a.m. tomorrow versus running late for the call. Slow but sure...and try not to be over stressed or over bored--cause this baby is Dr. Frankenstein's modification machine. If I can be coordinated with this, there could be some tremendous fitness gains.

Just got the reading list for the Business of illustrations course taught by the wonderful Jim Carson. We need to read this by mid July. Doable? Right?:

"Inside the Business of Illustration" by Steven Heller and Marshall Arisman, pages 1-122(read the rest if you have time)

"The Education of an Illustrator" (same), introduction and essays on pages 23, 29, 32, 36, 51, 53 (and any others)

Optional- "The Brand You 50" by Tom Peters

Just ordered the second hand versions from Amazon. Also just ordered a dozen bright warm red Oriental Poppies to stick in the deer's throats. I am feeling very positive about these poppies as they grow like weeds (good here)--and they are big and make a very powerful statement (which in a postage stamp lot is a problem--here...big works). Also ordered some Penstemion (Goats Beard) and some rather nice grasses to plant with them. I have this fantasy corner I want to plant with goodies those big vermin hate...but that takes if off of a beautiful,sunny weedbed. Why should weeds get all the good spaces? My tree peonies are going! I thought they were done for--but several of them are establishing and my oldest one has 4 big, plump buds that promise we might have a flower or two. Lilacs are coming. I saw a single wisteria in bloom today! It is all coming on! Mandy and I are focusing on that awful Garlic Mustard and pulling it out before it flowers. We have been at it now for a few years...and the population is definitely less. Pulling versus poisoning adds up.

More later

teaching and learning

I am musing over the education--my education to be specific. I don't understand why this seems to be important, but this random thinking floats in, settles, irritates me and moves on, occasionally but in an unresolved way. Maybe its just that I have been so pleased and refocused with this new world of illustration, this mid-careeer foible. Or is it? The first four years of design training got me into the game--despite the really rough and ineffectual curriculum and the approach to students being more destructive and dictatorial versus what I have experienced with Mentor Murray and to a much lesser degree, at Syracuse. Versus telling students what they cannot do, the approach is more encouraging but pushing the student back to his/her own devices, pushing the good stuff and leaving the bad stuff sit and steam. It is more about learning, self learning and giving the student an empowerment to take hold of what they have, (their talent, their salesmanship, their ability to put art with opportunity) and shine it up to get the best thing to happen to reflect well on the student, moments to build a career, moments to build job upon job to gain recognition.

Maybe this is because what motivates my Mentor is different than the rest. Murray loves to teach. He loves illustration and art. He loves the camaraderie of students and teachers. He loves to put people together who will bounce off each other to teach or inspire each other. He loves making connections through his actual teaching, or his life and living...He is a great matchmaker that creates new things. He is extrordinary at this.Murray loves to motivate and promote change--sometimes its uncomfortable with the learning or the self revelation but because he knows and wants to share that...comes, at least for me, a phenomenal amount of trust that when all is said and done, I would have moved ahead at least one. At Carnegie, what drove the teachers was their personal reputations they were building or had built--teaching was a way to extend their personal reach or validating the writing or involvement in professional institutions. This is the same at Syracuse. The professors instead of focusing on the growth and development of their charges--thinking, promoting and focusing on how best to move the development of the student's thinking and skill--they communicated their impatience with teaching, time in the studio the WORK around their jobs as professors keeping them AWAY from their own personal work, personal careers. It is/was teaching which was paying the bills that was keeping them from their chosen work, illustration. I think they may have gotten it backwards. Or at least I know they have gotten it backwards. The professor who told me NEVER, ever, to consider illustration probably spat that little gem out without thinking, without intuiting the impact it could have and did have on me. Good teachers push, are sympathetic but even more so, empathetic in their chosen job and love of teaching--of extending boundries for students--empowering them to be the best and to constantly challenge themselves to grow and change. To pursue this love with joy and hope--not stopping education with a No or Never. But a hey, why not..do it...do it...see what happens inspiration. Isn't that a better philosophy for learning? for Living? for your life?

more later

Monday monday

Lawn is mowed. Poor Chet, the lawnmower man. He was not feeling 100% as he shot a turkey and the gun hit him in the collarbone which he thinks he fractured. His mother was in the hospital after a rather frightening blood sugar incident...and his clients (some) are misbehaving. I am just thankful he comes to us regularly and makes this whole operation at least look legitimate-- and not the screwy, hippy scene that others see. My Roses are happy in the cool dampness. Mandy has a paintbrush in her hand. We are sending out computer back for IT support. Erich is busy making a perfect box to send the computer back (his training at Mailboxes Etc. is always invaluable). So, we are rolling on making this work. It's a techno bore...but I know we will get this all turned around.

R. got home--exhausted and happy to be home. We are rolling on K's bday. Need to wrap and make nice tonight for our princess' party. Pinkulation. Been churning away on the Baker Annual Report--finding some good stuff on Shutterstock...for the back section. Lots of happy dogs, cats, horses, foxhunts etc. Leaping, jumping, sitting, licking, smiling animals. This pub is a smaller book than last year...(phew!) and it needs to be the same, but different. How different is the question. But different, none the less.

Dinner was spent talking about the mental aspects of training and sports. it seemed to open up a new horizon for A. as he has strictly been focusing on his training and his personal times and presentation. Somehow, the aspect of intimidation (which for a 6'1" eighth grader) and his personal style and expectation as a part of the whole program was intriguing. A. is a gentleman who remembers people from former events, music events, other events and reaches out to say hi, shake hands, mix it up a bit. This gentlemanly thing combined with competition was until tonight, a bit beyond his ken. Interesting that our job is to open the door a bit to let him see the next step. He has been included in an invitational--which should be interesting as he can use this new awareness to see if it can help him.